Sunday, September 30, 2012

I'm back, after an amazing week away. We had a really great time and a getaway was just what we needed. It was nice for everyone to sleep in their own beds last night, though. I took a ton of pictures and will be posting them throughout the week, along with some other things. For now, though, just a quick post, because I've got Halloween decorating to do! I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

I know summer is over, but we are headed to the beach for the week. Waiting until after Labor Day meant cheaper accommodations and empty beaches. The weather is supposed to be lovely all week and I'm just really excited to get away for awhile! I've always loved the beach and spent a lot of time there growing up. My family actually used to own the house we are renting. With my love of the beach, comes my love of kitschy old beach movies. Yes, they're completely corny and, well, they're portrayal of women is outdated to say the least, but I could watch these over and over. Actually, I have watched these over and over! I've made my husband sit through every single one of these and am making him listen to the music from some of them as I write this post! I own a bunch of them on VHS, but I think you can stream most of them on Netflix. Here are some of my favorites!

Friday, September 21, 2012

For now, my boys share a bedroom. I think they're okay with that. Luckily the boys are too young to care a whole lot about the decor, because it's mostly stuff that I love. Who knows, maybe Oscar and Ben will be really into vintage planters and nursery items. They
don't spend a whole lot of time in there, but they do enjoy playing
their room and for the most part, they seem to enjoy sleeping in there
too. Ben, I'm looking at you. Did you hear me? You enjoy sleeping in
your room, all night! Oh, I captioned all the pictures in hopes that my witty banter will deflect from my lack of photography skills and less than stellar camera.

I bought this lamp when I was pregnant with Oscar. I love the old wooden nursery decor. I think Irmi is the popular brand. I found the lamp for just a few dollars on eBay. I actually found the matching light switch cover first, but I forgot to photograph it!

The stuffed dog is one of those autograph hounds. We had everyone who came to Oscar's 1st birthday party sign it. I'm sad we didn't remember to do the same thing for Ben's 1st birthday.

I had forgotten about this little hen and chick planter tucked away on the bookcase. It's one of my favorites!

I found this little guy, along with the blue deer, at a flea market when I was pregnant with Oscar. Apparently I bought a lot of things when I was pregnant with Oscar. I vaguely remember having money before we had two children. I think this pony is evidence that I began pushing my tacky tastes on my boys as early as possible!

The boys have a ton of books and a lot of the books on these shelves were mine when I was a child. The Richard Scarry one was always one of my favorites.

It's A Small World is my absolute favorite thing at Disney World. It's just so damn cute! We found these figures at Marshall's, so they were really inexpensive. I think the Aussie one looks like Oscar.

This shelf is mostly full of little lambs, with the exception of this one little dog.

This Paddington Bear music box was also mine as a child. I always loved how the paint was so crackly.

More books?! Seriously, these kids can't even read yet!

Oscar loves his stuffed animals and every night, at least half a dozen get piled on his bed all around him. I loved my stuffed animals growing up too. The really raggedy looking Grover was mine and you can tell he was well loved!

Both boys seriously love to rock. Actually, as I was trying to take a picture of this chair, Oscar sat down in it and started rocking furiously before being distracted by some random toy. I fawned over this chair for ages at a local antique place, but it was out of my price range. It must have sat in that booth for years, always with the same expensive price. My grandma finally bought it for me, after making an offer. I have the best grandma ever, but that's for another time!

The previous owners mounted mantels to the walls in a couple rooms of our house and we've left the ones in the bedrooms. The flash cards that spell out the boys' names are reproductions of old ones and are in French. I don't speak French, but thought the pictures were adorable.

This cool guy helped out with all the photos and then posed for this one!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

I don't know about you, but I am happy to have cooler weather. We have been able to start taking our evening walks again, without having to stop to wipe the sweat from our foreheads! It seems like forever since we've taken a really long walk together. Actually, I don't know if the walks are a long distance as much as they just take a long time, because Oscar usually wants to push the stroller and he does not welcome any help. In case you don't have kids or aren't there yet, two year olds are bossy and independent. Last night we walked to a local place for dinner and ice cream and then took a long walk around town. I think there are a lot of lovely buildings in our town and I always enjoy walking around and taking it all in. A few of the businesses on Main Street had Halloween decorations in their windows and I especially liked seeing all the mums and marigolds in warm fall colors. I hope everyone else has been enjoying the change in weather!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

I love old fairytales and fables. Apparently I'm not alone, because the internet is full of really great items inspired by the stories that many of us grew up on. I love Little Red Riding Hood, but then again, I have a thing for capes. Here are a few of my favorite items inspired by Red and the big bad wolf...

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Donnie works a little over an hour away, so he usually doesn't get home until 6pm or later. The boys don't always like to wait that late for their dinner, so I typically feed them and then wait for Don to get home to have our dinner. I cherish this time with my boys. I feel like mealtime is stressful for a lot of parents, but I think it's a pretty relaxed time for us. We don't rush it or really force anyone to eat. Oscar usually talks to me about his toys and his day and Ben makes funny noises and claps his hands. We sing silly songs, share bites of food, and enjoy each others company. I think these are moments that families take for granted. Our lives are busy and it seems like everything happens at a fast pace. It's nice to slow down and enjoy simple things sometimes, which is the point of today's post. It's amazing how something as ordinary as dinnertime can make me forget the stress of the life and the mess of toys strewn all over the house. I know the time will come when my boys have activities, school functions, and plans with friends that will prevent us from sitting down together, but for now, I will be grateful for our moments around the table.

Monday, September 17, 2012

I'm pretty clever when it comes to titles for my posts, right? I have been really fortunate to see a lot of bands live. Some of them were really amazing and some not so much. I'm going to confess something here. I once saw Nickelback. Seriously. A friend asked me to come to some music festival once and I gladly tagged along without really knowing who was going to be there. I probably would have declined if I had seen the lineup, but there was one saving grace and that was Outkast. I am a huge hip hop fan, but I rarely see hip hop acts live. They were good from what I remember. Want to know who else was there? Tommy Lee. That's right. I know anyone who is reading this is super jealous now! Here's another confession, one of my first concerts was New Kids On The Block. I'm not embarrassed by that one. I was about seven and had the biggest crush on Joey. What I guess I'm getting at is that I really love music. I have seen everyone from the Grateful Dead to Hole to Bloc Party to The Casualties (scary awful punk band!). Keeping this playlist a decent length wasn't easy, because I have mostly enjoyed the bands I've seen live and I have great memories and stories from a lot of the shows. Here are some songs from a few of the acts I've seen that I thought were really amazing! What are some of your favorite bands to see live?

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Yesterday the lovely Tasha and I went for yummy frozen yogurt. I think I am quickly developing a habit, but it's just so darn delicious! There are always so many choices at these places and I want them all, but I settled for dulce de leche, white chocolate macadamia nut, and red velvet cake (my favorite!) and topped it all off with strawberries, s'mores bits, and almond roca. Afterwards we hit up a thrift store and a nearby antique mall. Before heading home, we stopped for coffee. We found some great stuff and had a really fun day. I can see this happening again soon!

This is just a crappy iPhone pic, but seriously, how good does this look?!

The snail picture is embroidered. It's a little stained up, but I thought it was sweet. The shelf is old chalkware.

I guess I have a thing for yellow kitchenwares!

Oscar is kind of obsessed with Caillou (the little bald guy in the center), so I was happy to find him in the middle of a bag of these little toys!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Don and I don't always have the opportunity to dress up for Halloween, but we have always coordinated our costumes in the past. I don't know what our plans are for this year, but I want to be prepared. I've been thinking of ideas that would be easy and fun, so I turned to things we like. Kiki's Delivery Service is one of my favorite movies. Kiki learns to believe in herself and is totally my hero. She couldn't have down it without her friend, Tombo, though. Kiki and Tombo costumes would definitely be doable and we could actually wear the pieces at times other than Halloween. Don't ask about the boys' costumes. I have no idea what they'll dress up as this year, but I was leaning towards Oscar being Finn and Benny being Ice King. I'm sure that if I ask Oscar, he will tell me that they will dress up as trucks. That kid has a one track mind!

Friday, September 14, 2012

Our dining room is one of my favorite rooms in our house. When we bought our house, the dining room walls were covered with hideous wallpaper. It had big brown roses all over it and the old wainscoting on the bottom of half of the walls were painted the same ugly brown. There was a section of wallpaper that had started to come loose, so one day I just started pulling it all down. We scraped the ugly wallpaper off to reveal pencil markings of the year the wallpaper had been put up. It was 1984, I believe. I have a photograph of it somewhere. Below that date was a second date that was sometime much earlier in the 1900s, but I don't recall the exact year. I'm sure the original wallpaper was much prettier. My camera is junk, so it's hard to tell that the walls are actually a pale minty green and the wainscoting is white.

I mentioned that my camera is crap, right? It really doesn't do this Hoosier cabinet justice. This belonged to my great grandma on my father's side. My grandpa restored it years ago and it's absolutely my favorite piece of furniture. I don't really have much from my father's side of the family, so this cabinet is definitely a cherished treasure.

Our house is such a mix of old and new. Our buffet is actually just a dresser from Ikea. I loved the color when we saw it and I think it fits really nicely in our space. Our ever-growing toy collection has started to spill over into the dining room and the ones on our buffet are some of my favorites.

It is so hard for me to pass up vintage glasses and bar ware. I especially have a soft spot for pieces that are pink and turquoise!

Here's Oscar showing off his cool kitchen. Seriously, the boys love this old metal kitchen set. It's a "Sunny Suzy Rite Hite." Oscar spends a lot of time here making coffee and soup and doesn't seem to mind that the oven knobs have all been pulled off.

This is our other old play kitchen. I bought this set at an estate auction a long time ago. They're so beaten up. I like to think that some little kids loved this set as much as the boys love theirs.

Our table and chairs are also from Ikea. The table is really long and roomy, but a lot of my vintage tablecloths don't fit. This one works perfectly, though! The table and chairs we used previously came from my great grandmother's dining room and were just lovely, but they weren't really ready for the abuse my boys would have afflicted.

I think that one of the reasons I most love this room is because of the handmade touches. My grandma made the curtains and most of the hanging shelves were made by my grandpa.